Eric Johnston has reported on Japan for 35 years. From Sapporo, he is working on a 70-year-old Hokkaido story, and he needs readers' help to finish it.

In four and a half years in Hokkaido, Eric Johnston has never seen a bear in the wild. His wife caught one for about half a second, from the boardwalk at Shiretoko. "We were perfectly safe," he said. "And by the time I looked over, I didn't see anything."

That hasn't kept him from writing about them. Johnston, the Japan Times' Senior National Correspondent, arrived in Japan in 1988 to teach English in Kyoto, and he credits most of what followed to timing. He has covered the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the 1997 Kyoto climate conference, leaders' summits in Okinawa and Hokkaido, and Barack Obama's visit to Hiroshima. Since 2022 he has worked from Sapporo, writing about national politics and, when he can, Hokkaido stories that matter beyond the island.

We talked by video for more than an hour. He had views on bears, on the Ainu, on why puns work better than sarcasm in Sapporo, and on whether the city counts as international. He also had a request, about something that happened 70 years ago. It comes at the end.

Johnston's interest in Japan started with his father, a string bass player who spent 1950 and 1951 in the Navy at Yokosuka. Volunteering for the dance bands was a dependable way off the ship. On shore leave his father took a charcoal-powered taxi into Ginza, picked up some conversational Japanese, and bought a stack of enka records. Johnston grew up hearing them. "He said, why don't you learn Japanese? It's not too difficult to speak, but the writing is quite difficult," Johnston said. "And he was certainly correct on that."

In the mid-1980s Johnston was a business and communications major at the University of Pittsburgh, where Japanese steelmakers were putting mill workers out of jobs and students wanted to know what Japan was doing that America wasn't. The university's Japanese program, which he believes had grown on a large gift from a Japanese steelmaker, had about a half-dozen students in its first-year class. He joined partly because he needed a foreign language credit and had barely taken any French.

After graduating he took a teaching job in Kyoto through friends. In 1991, tired of teaching English, he saw a small ad in the Japan Times from an Osaka publisher that wanted someone to start an English edition of its magazine for the arcade game and karaoke industries. "To be perfectly honest with you, I had no real interest in video games," he said. "My generation was pool, pinball, and foosball." He was 27, with no journalism or business experience. He could hold a conversation in Japanese, and by the end of the interview the executive editor told him they wanted to hire him.

Keep reading online: how a Pittsburgh business major ended up running an arcade game magazine in Osaka, why he left Kansai for Sapporo, why the bears keep coming into town, the Ainu, whether Sapporo is really an international city, and the 1956 story he needs Hokkaido's help to find.

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Marimo are green algae that roll into balls, and Lake Akan is the only place known to grow giant ones. How big can they get?

A) A golf ball (about 4 cm)
B) A grapefruit (about 10 cm)
C) Bigger than a basketball (about 30 cm)
D) A beach ball (about 60 cm)

Keep reading. The answer's waiting for you at the bottom of this issue.

Akan Ainu Art Week opens October 8 and runs through October 31, free to wander, with artworks and installations spread across Lake Akan Onsen and the Ainu Kotan. We flagged it in last week's weekend guide. The 2026 theme is Pirka Kar Kar, about the act of making something beautiful. The kotan gives you a way to try the making part yourself.

Wood carving. You carve Ainu patterns onto a wooden charm shaped like a tonkori, the Ainu stringed instrument. It takes about an hour.

Embroidery. You stitch Ainu patterns onto a cotton coaster, also about an hour. Instructors include Kayoko Nishida, who runs a folk art shop in the kotan. A travel feature notes that she asks participants to think of someone special while they stitch, which turns a coaster into a small gift.

Mukkuri. Some programs let you carve and string your own mukkuri, the Ainu mouth harp.

Check HERE for the hands-on options

The kotan is a living community. It describes itself as home to about 120 people, and its craft shops are run by the families who live there. Classes are small, and reservations are required. Minimums run from two people to five depending on the program, and sessions top out at ten.

Prices depend on who runs the session. The kotan's own page lists the carving class at ¥5,000. A separate tour operator lists a similar class at ¥8,000 with the kit included. Compare before you book. Start times in the listings are late morning and early afternoon.

The booking pages are in English. We couldn't confirm that the instruction is, so ask when you reserve. Enquiries go to +81 154-67-2727.

Closing night is Saturday, October 31, with a live set from xiangyu and producer Kuniyuki Takahashi. A Friday session plus closing night makes a tidy trip. Lake Akan is in eastern Hokkaido, about two and a half hours by bus from Kushiro Station.

THE BUTTER opened on July 25, officially Snow Brand Hokkaido Butter Day, on the first floor of Akarenga Terrace. It sits across from the red-brick former Hokkaido Government Office, a short walk from Sapporo Station. It's the first butter-specialty cafe from Snow Brand Megmilk, run by Snow Brand Parlor, which has operated cafes and restaurants in Sapporo for years.

The hook sits behind a glass wall. A custom butter churn turns factory cream into butter on the spot, and the butter is served within 24 hours of being made. The churn runs on an irregular schedule, so you can't count on catching it in action.

The menu leans on warm bread and fresh butter. There's a butter toast set with bacon and sausage, a signature butter French toast (reviewers mention a seasonal version), and takeout fries made with Hokkaido potatoes and the fresh butter. One reviewer says the fries read like jaga-bata in fry form. That makes this the natural sequel to our butter fries piece: the same pairing, with the butter made in the room.

Hours are 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., with last order at 5:00pm, and there are about 40 seats. One reviewer on Tabelog turned away from a line around 11 a.m. and came back earlier, so mornings are the safer bet.

Location: 1F Akarenga Terrace,
1-1, Kita 2-jo Nishi 4-chome, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0002 , Japan

Tel: 011-206-1812

See you out there. · また木曜日に。

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🎯 Trivia answer: C) Bigger than a basketball (about 30 cm)

A marimo ball isn't a single organism. It's a colony of fine green filaments that waves roll into a sphere, and in most lakes where marimo lives, it never forms balls at all. Spheres larger than about 12 cm are known only at Lake Akan, where they reach around 30 cm. The largest on record, found in 1997, measured 34 cm. They've been a Special Natural Monument since 1952, and the Marimo Festival at the Akan Ainu Kotan, running October 8 to 10, has been held since 1950 to promote their conservation.